In Tucson

We are in Tucson, Arizona. We stopped here to visit Jim's high school friend Doug and his partner Gary. Jim performed the wedding ceremony for them when they were married in California before Proposition 8 outlawed such marriages.

In Alamogordo, New Mexico

Today we made it to Alamogordo, New Mexico, via Roswell, New Mexico. We went to Roswell to see the UFO Museum and had a great time. We also went to the well Museum and Art Center which was far better than we thought it would be. We drove through a lot of sparsely populated land, and beautiful scenery. From Dalhart, Texas, we went to Clovis, New Mexico, then to Roswell, up to Ruidoso and down to Alamogordo. A very pleasant day. We even bought a bottle of New Mexico wine to try later.

In Dalhart, Texas

After three days in Topeka we are on the road again. Saturday we picked up Laura's sister Susan in Wichita and started driving to San Diego, California for Jim's granddaughter's high school graduation. After the graduation we will go visit our kids in Las Vegas, Salt lake City, and Denver. Then we return to Topeka for a while. Jim is already missing SE Asia. Since we've been home Jim has had trouble adjusting to the American diet. He has had more stomach and bowel problems since we've been home than he had on the whole trip. Dalhart, Texas, is a small town in the Texas panhandle. When you step outside the car or the hotel room you smell the feed lots. Not as bad as the one time we drove through Hereford, Texas, but similar. One nice touch is that at the Days Inn where we spent the night the waffle maker made waffles in the shape of Texas.

At Home

After a twenty-four hour trip from Bangkok, we are home!

In Bangkok

We are back in Bangkok. Tuesday we fly home. Nice to be back here to relax and get ready to go home, even if we don't want to go home.

In Saigon

We took an eight hour bus ride from Da Lat to here. This is a city that Jim doesn't like. Although, that might be because the first time he was here he had Dengue Fever. Anyway, it was another long, uneventful bus ride. The pretty scenery was around Da lat, then we got out of the mountains and the ground became flat. Saigon is the economic engine that drives Vietnam and is one bustling city.

In Da Lat 2

May is the warmest month in Da Lot and it rains most afternoons, but today it has rained all day, making the weather cool. Da lot is the coolest town on our trip. Because of the rain everyone is riding around on their motorbikes and scooters wearing plastic rain coats. We are watching the women drive their scooters with spike heels or sit sidesaddle behind the driver. All over Asia there can be four or more people on one motorbike. The motorbikes are adapted for everything from carrying fish for your fish tank, to transporting a compressor.

Today in the rain we saw an advertisement for a scooter being photographed. It was raining and yet the camera crew wanted more rain for a good shot. For the advertisement a young woman is standing beside her broken down scooter in a skirt, blouse and of course spike heels, and a guy is supposed to rescue her with an umbrella. The cameraman had another man with a garden hose shooting an arc of water on to the woman. She instantly looked like a drowned rat in need of rescuing.

Jim got a haircut today in preparation for going home. The best thing about the haircut was as Jim got his haircut he looked directly at the bottom half of a 6Omm mortar shell that the man used to store items in on his counter.

We leave tomorrow on an eight hour bus trip to Ho Chi Minh City, formerly Saigon. The name was changed but the use of the name Saigon goes on. I am even looking at Saigon Kleenex in our hotel room.

In Da Lat

After a four hour bus ride we are in Da Lat, in the highlands of Vietnam, at an elevation of 4,928 feet. We went from sea level to here in one short ride. It is considerably cooler here and seems to rain every afternoon.

It is so much nicer here. This is the honeymoon capitol of Vietnam. So there is a lot of young love here. This is a city of excellent French food and architecture. Most new hotels are in the French Colonial chalet style with a high peaked roof lines and are painted off white, cream, or yellow.

The French colors for their colonies was yellow and green, and the new mansions being built by wealthy Vietnamese can be painted any color even bright green. Our first trip to Da Lot was in 2008 and the town has grown a lot since. It is no longer a sleepy little village, but a busy city. There are hotels everywhere for honeymooners and tourists. Everyone seems to want a look at this quaint place. Yesterday we had coffee with rum at a restaurant on the shores of the lake in the center of town and we watched both young lovers and kids paddling in swan paddle boats.

We visited The Crazy House which is Da Lot's number one tourist attraction. I took a photo of the architect who is continuing to add on to the house and has now added more gift shops.

We are staying at the River Palace Hotel. This hotel is excellent and has a good breakfast and is in the center of town. We can walk in any direction and from our window we can see the Da Lat Easy Rider Headquarters. That is a motorcycle club with members all over Southeast Asia. We have seen some club rides as we travel. In Penang we saw a Muslim Harley Davidson riding club arriving at the hotel we were staying. All the women were seated behind their husbands and when the women took their helmets off, they were wearing Haley Davidson handkerchiefs as headscarves to cover their hair in proper Muslim fashion. The food here is also wonderful. After we arrived we ate our fist meal at the Art Cafe and I had fish in clay pot brown sauce served with brown almost red rice, which was an excellent combination. We now have eaten twice at the Long Hoa, Restaurant de Famille. Yesterday had barbecued beef wrapped in lot leaf, which is a pepper leaf. Today I had strips of chicken breasts served over lightly sautéed sweet onions instead of rice. I must do this at home. After lunch Jim bought a pomelo, which is thought to be the ancestor to the grapefruit but much larger and sweeter. He tried to cut it open and failed so I took it to the hotel kitchen and the chief chef took a cleaver out and cut the fruit into the shape of a square, and then shaped it into a ball. She then began peeling the sections. I then took it back to the room to eat. The chef said our pomelo was young and next time we should pick a fruit that is shiny green and then would have a thinner skin. I must talk about the Da Lot wine. We drink the Da Lat red wine that is made from cardinal grapes and mulberries. We are even buying dried mulberries in the market to eat as our snack. We like this city.

In Nha Trang

We are in Nha Trang, the diving capitol of Vietnam. We took a five hour bus ride from Quy Nhon on our bright green Mailinh bus. The bus company picked us up in a van at our hotel and took us to the bus station where we caught the "big" bus to Nha Trang. The trip ended at the Nha Trang bus terminal where we caught a taxi to our hotel. So, we are here.

In Quy Nhon

After spending four nights in Hoi An, we caught a taxi to Da Nang and then a train to Quy Nhon. The train ride was an uneventful six hours. this is a very pleasant non-touristy town on the coast of Vietnam, halfway between Da Nang and Nha Trang. We originally stopped here to break up the long trip between Nha Trang and Dan Nang/Hoi An and discovered we liked the city. So, we come back. We have a hotel, The Sunflowers, overlooking the beach where we can watch the fishermen in their round boats and enjoy the beach.

In Hoi An

We took the Green Train sleeper from Hanoi to Hoi An. The trip was uneventful. We had a four person cabin to the three of us. We only bought three berths but the fourth was empty the whole trip. There was a lady and her daughter that were assigned to it, but when they came to the cabin in Hanoi, she wanted to switch to a lower berth from the upper she had a ticket for, and we refused. Then her daughter threw up on the floor, and we never saw her in our cabin again. She found a lower berth in another cabin. Hoi An is the city that tourists most love. It's another UNESCO World Heritage site and is really pleasant. It's also the home for the "Want to buy a Suit? Dress? Pants?" tourist industry in Vietnam. This time Jim succumbed and ordered a cotton skirt, oops, kilt. So, we'll see how it looks.

Ha Long Bay

We booked a tour to Ha Long Bay for two days and one night. For the one night we stayed on a boat somewhere in Ha Long Bay. The bus ride from Hanoi to Ha Long City took four hours and then we boarded the boat. Because we booked a tour we were picked up at our hotel and traveled with fifteen other people, most of whom were young enough to be our grandchildren.

We were talking to one very enjoyable lady from London who mentioned her 67 year old grandmother. But, we all got along quite well. We even met with two of the group for drinks later in Hanoi.

Since we were here four years ago the government has decreed that all the tourist boats must be painted white, completely destroying the ambiance of the boats that were painted different colors. The trip itself was wonderful. Last time we spent a second night on Cat Ba Island, but this time we opted to go back to Hanoi. Ha long Bay is a UNESCO World heritage site and deserves it. The islands jutting up from the water are amazing. There is another bay further north that is just starting to get tourists and is where we will probably go to next time.

In Hanoi

We are in Hanoi, Vietnam. We took an Air Asia flight from Bangkok to here. We arrived an hour before Joyce's flight from the U.S. so we waited for an hour at the airport and met her. We all took a car provided by our hotel to the hotel. It is a lot cooler here than it was in Bangkok.

We are now in the land of good $2 bottles of wine, which Vang Da Lat, which is bottled in Da Lat, the honeymoon capitol of Vietnam.

We are staying in the old quarter, which is a crowded, chaotic area. We really enjoy hanoi, hope Joyce does also.

In Bangkok III

We are back in Bangkok. We took an eight hour bus ride from Udon Thani to Bangkok. The bus evvn provided a meal. it was a fast and easy trip on a bus that could have used new shock absorbers.

While In Bangkok we got our yellow fever shots to go to Africa. We also ended up getting two other shots that had expired. We went to the Thailand Red Cross and they were great. Almost painless shots.

Back in Udon Thani, Thailand

For our last meal in Vientiane we at at Ray's Grill. This time Laura ordered a Philly Cheese Steak sandwich on a baguette. It was delicious, and she was eating bread. Ray taught us how to ask for rice flour. We say "Bang Cow", at least that what it sounded like to Jim. With the Philly Cheese Steaks we had red wine, which Ray did not chill to cellar temperature. But, it was still a pretty good French Merlot.

This morning it was time to leave, so we caught a bus to Udon Thani. The trip took longer than it did getting there because the border crossings were jammed with Thais heading home after New Year. Anyway, we made it and checked into our hotel, @ Home At Udon, which is less than $20 per night and a bargain.

But, we did bring a few baguettes with us from Lao. At the bus station Jim said "Bang Cow" to a lady selling baguettes and she nodded and painted at the baguettes. So, Jim bought half a dozen which we have been eating all day. Here's a photo of one after it has been mangled in the trip from Lao to Thailand.

Couple of thoughts on Lao that we never posted.

At our hotel is a French couple and their twenty-something son. They are here to visit Vang Vieng where their other son died last year. Very nice couple and very sad. There is French woman and her two teenage children that are traveling around SE Asia for ten months. They came in September and go back to France in July. Their daughter goes off to college next year so she thought this would be her last chance to do something like this.

We had salted fish a couple of times. The fish is caught then the complete fresh fish is grilled over charcoal after dipping each side in salt. When we say complete fish, we mean it. The fish is served with its complete head, tail, and entrails, and stuffed with an onion in its mouth. The fish was quite good, but we left the entrails along with the bones and the head.

Ray From Seattle

There is a great small restaurant down the street from our hotel which is owned by Ray From Seattle, and his Laotian wife.

Funny thing about the restaurant is that Ray cooks mostly Middle Eastern food, felafel and the like.

We were talking and he informed us that in Lao most baguettes are made with rice flour, and not wheat. Laura was excited. She can eat the wonderful baguettes they have here. Mike said to be sure to buy the cheap ones because the expensive ones do contain wheat. Just like soy sauce, the cheap stuff Laura can eat, the expensive stuff has wheat added. And, he said, do not order any baguettes in a French restaurant or bakery because they will surely contain wheat.

Ray told us about the baguettes after we finished our meal so we bought a grilled baguette from him and took it back to our hotel to eat. Laura ate half the baguette and has not had any problems, so, it's pig out on baguettes time. Jim had ordered a burger which came on a baguette and he hadn't even noticed that it was made from rice flour. He thought it looked and tasted identical to a wheat baguette so he was very surprised.

A Wet and Crazy Time

Today we ventured forth, on the first day of the Lao New Year. There was music and water everywhere. People were drinking Beer Lao, singing, shouting and throwing water. There were pickups cruising the streets with people in the bed throwing water on people waiting along the side of the street to throw water on people driving or walking past.

Within a few minutes we, along with nearly everyone else, were soaked in the 99 degree weather. The main streets were like rivers. Water came at you from hoses, high powered squirt guns, buckets and pans. The entire town is like a beach party, without the beach.

We discovered that children’s swimming pools make excellent reservoirs for water to throw on people.

Amidst all this chaos the temple were full of people offering prayers, sprinkling and pouring water over the Buddhas. The temples were off limits to the craziness going on in the rest of the city, and were an oasis of calm.

It seemed like all the food sellers in town had pushed their carts to their favorite temple so the devotees would not go hungry in between wetting down the Buddhas.The temples often brought the Buddha statues outside the temple so people could pour water on them.

Pai Mai Lao 2555

This is now Buddhist year 2555. In Lao they practice Theravada Buddhism, which is one of the main types of Buddhism, and is the dominant type in Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, and Thailand.

In the English language Vientiane Times, which is published by the government, they had a couple of comments regarding Pai Mai Lao, or the Lao New Year:

"Everyone has the right to put soot on a person's face to indicate they had some deficiency or that their behavior was inappropriate in spirit and word. Instead of putting soot on another person's face they often use flour, which usually goes over the face, in the hair and on the clothes, mixing with the water which is usually already there.

"Visiting a temple over Pai Mao Lao helps to set people free from their daily worries and should bring them health, happiness and good fortune in the year to come. Laura heeded this advice at Wat Si Muang.

After going to Wat Si Muang, Laura was looking at cloth to buy and this salesman was particularly insistent.

Life In Lao

Yesterday during lunch at the Talad Sal Market we were watching an overhead TV and a television advertisement caught Laura’s attention. The advertisement showed a modernly dressed Laotian woman washing clothes in the backyard of her house in a large wash tub. She was scrubbing away, and her hands were becoming red and irritated. The hands suddenly became animated showing the pain she was feeling in them. Then her husband and two children appear from the house and they are smiling with an idea. Laura thinks that they are either going to help her wash the clothes, or buy her a washing machine. No! They are going to buy her a different brand of bar laundry soap. Such is life in Laos.

Songkan - Lao New Year

Lao new year is celebrated every year from April 13 to 15. This afternoon from our hotel room we could hear music and singing so Laura decided to investigate. After half an hour Laura came back to the hotel soaking wet. She had found the party. It was at the Lao National Theater and it was a party the afternoon before the staff headed home to their villages for New Year. The theater people played music,sung, drank and danced the afternoon away. The party ended at 5pm as the people left for their homes.

We only stayed for about an hour. But, it was long enough to be completely drenched.


As Wikipedia put it "Tourists that plan to travel to Laos during the New Year are advised to be prepared to be soaked. This has an important role in Laotian culture - they are not only wishing a long and healthy life for themselves, they are also wishing the same for others."